Bringing Life to the God of the Dead: Jay Duplass Shares His Personal Percy Jackson Connections, Hades Secrets, Rick Riordan Conversations (Exclusive)

The god of the dead is alive and well. Jay Duplass made his debut as Hades in the latest episode of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, greeting the titular demigod and Grover Underwood upon their arrival to his palace in the underworld. While his screen time in this first season is limited to just one scene, Duplass’s personal connection to Percy Jackson has run for decades.

“I have a 15-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy, and Percy Jackson is hands down their favorite piece of art across any medium. They have each probably read the entire series at least five times,” Duplass told ComicBook.com. “I’ve read a lot of it to them. I’ve heard it over audiobook on road trips. It was part of our bedtime routine. We’d say goodnight, hit play on the audiobook, and they go to sleep. I know a lot about it and I am a huge fan. I think it’s just such a beautiful series.”

Percy Jackson has thrived on the novelized front throughout the 21st century. What began as a single bedtime story for author Rick Riordan’s son quickly evolved into a New York Times best-selling pentalogy that then birthed two sequel series and a number of spin-off stories. Even with that much lore, Hollywood struggled to sink its teeth into the IP. After two attempts of making Percy Jackson feature films, chatter on the books’ live-action opportunities went mute. That changed once the live-action rights went to Disney, which inspired Riordan to spearhead development conversations. 

Once that light turned green on a Disney+ series, Duplass wanted in.

“When I heard that Disney was going to make a television series and that Rick Riordan was going to be centered creatively, I told my agents right away that if there’s any way I can be a part of it, let’s go,” Duplass shared. “I did not think that it would happen. When they offered me the role of Hades, my kids’ eyes popped out of their heads. Now if they have to holler at me, they’re like, ‘Yo! Hades!’ It is a big part of our world. We’ve been watching it every night when they drop, as a family, every Tuesday night.”

As it turned out, Duplass’s interest in Disney+’s adaptation permeated to some of his real-life companions.

“It is a little wild because Timm Sharp (Gabe Ugliano) is a really good friend of mine. Jason Mantzoukas (Dionysus) is a really good friend of mine. Suzanne Cryer (Echidna) lives three houses down from me,” Duplass said. “It really feels very contained. It would be so fun to go head to head with them in this alternate universe because they’re a part of my human life.”

Like all of the gods, Hades is far from a one-note deity. Percy Jackson Season 1 only scratches the surface of the god of the underworld’s personality and history, was something Duplass made sure to execute.

“Hades is obviously culturally very known, even beyond the book series. What I was told is that Rick and [showrunners] Dan Shotz and Jonathan E. Steinberg were creating something very specific,” Duplass said. “They didn’t want Hades to be one thing. These are all complicated characters. Everything feels very lived in. Hades is a god who feels like he got the short end of the stick. I live in another world, a lonely world. I’m excited to have company when company shows up, but I also have my own agenda and I have a lot of skin in the game.”

Some of that direction came from Riordan himself. Duplass recalled some of his one-on-one talks with the author himself that helped ground what on paper is a very other-worldly property.

“I had a lot of conversations with him. He’s very present in the making of the show. We talked about everything, from life to what it’s like being Hades down there in the underworld. Tons of relaxed conversations, which is a testament to the set culture that they built there,” Duplass recalled. “You could feel it in the making of the show. It feels very lived in and it feels very personal. We are making this gargantuan, fantastical show but on the ground it honestly felt like a group of very focused people making a very personal piece of art. It was cool to get to know Rick and to be a part of helping him make his vision come across in live-action. I would call my kids at night and tell them what was going on.”

With Riordan at the helm of those creative discussions, any liberties that the show takes with the source material essentially comes with his approval. One of those changes seemingly came with Hades himself, specifically in what keeps him in the underworld. Hades notes that Zeus and Poseidon’s drama above is why he stays down in the underworld. In the books, Hades is banished to his undead kingdom. 

Despite what Hades may proclaim, Duplass thinks the god of the dead is on a “I wasn’t fired, I quit” mentality.

“Some people say that kind of stuff when they really don’t have a choice, but they’re trying to make it sound like they do,” Duplass added. “I think the feeling of that line, definitely in my mind I am playing with feeling banished. I’m stuck down here by myself. He’s playing a very long game time-wise and that he’s got some desire himself.”

That long game gets a sudden timeout when Percy brings up Hades’s father: Kronos. Within Greek mythology, Kronos is the king of the titans and the father to Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. The Big Three were able to overthrow their tyrannical father, chopping him up into pieces and banishing him to Tartarus, a hellish and inescapable pit within the underworld. As the latest Percy Jackson episode teases, Kronos is still stirring, using manipulation on impressionable youth to attempt a resurrection.

“Trigger central!” Duplass said of the Kronos name-drop. “I think he recognizes that Percy knows some things. Obviously the gods are going to use the demigods as pawns to try and get what they can get. I think he realizes at that point that Percy might have a lot more going on than your average demigod and that he needs to play his cards as smartly as possible.”

Duplass can be seen as Hades in the latest episode of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, streaming now on Disney+.